Traffic delays costs local commuters hundreds a year

Hampton Roads commuters could have watched an extra 17 movies, played another eight rounds of golf or slept the equivalent of four nights during the time they wasted stuck in rush-hour traffic last year.

Commuters here spent about 34 hours delayed in congestion, according to a national study released Tuesday by the Texas Transportation Institute at Texas A&M University.

The delay time crept up a couple of hours over 2009 but is still significantly less than in much of the past decade. They peaked in the early to mid-2000s in the low 40s.

Similarly, the cost of congestion to each driver increased some as well, to $654 in wasted fuel, lost work hours and delays in shipping goods. That's about $50 more than in 2009.

The economy, which has put people out of work and suppressed demand for certain goods and services, has contributed to reduced congestion over the past several years, David Schrank,a research scientist with TTI, said.

But while the national average for congestion delay remained stagnant over the past two years, Hampton Roads' increased number may be related to the strong military presence and the steady employment and traffic it creates, he said.

"You have a lot of government-based jobs, and when the economy is down, the public sector is where the jobs are," Schrank said.

Overall, though, he said, "There's a lot of wobble in the numbers right now; there's not a solid trend."

Dwight Farmer, executive director of the Hampton Roads Transportation Planning Organization, said that for the commuters who use the region's notorious bridge and tunnel bottlenecks, the delays are far more severe, at least three times greater than the regional average.

"I think the backups at these chokepoints are steadily getting worse," he said, adding that four or more miles of congestion at the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel has become common during rush hour. "But we have a lot of other travel on other roadways that don't have anywhere near the level of congestion those chokepoints have."

Average congestion delays for Hampton Roads commuters ranked 10th-worst among the 32 metropolitan areas studied with populations of 1 million to 3 million. Overall, the region ranks 26th among more than 100 cities.

Nationally, the average commuter wasted 34 hours in traffic in 2010, at a cost of $750. Commuters in Chicago and Washington suffered the most, losing more than 70 hours a year to traffic delays and about $1,500 in congestion costs.

The study authors report that the economy provides only a temporary break in growing congestion. When the economy starts growing again, delays are expected to climb an additional three hours by 2015 and seven hours by 2020, the researchers said. And the cost of gridlock will rise to $900 per commuter in 2015.

The TTI analysis uses traffic volume data from the states as well as traffic speed data from INRIX, the leading private-sector provider of transportation data.

Debbie Messina, (757) 446-2588, debbie.messina@pilotonline.com